Low periapsis Narrow Angle Camera image of the Apollo 17 Landing Site. Image is 150 meters wide, Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
New images of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites are the highest resolution pictures ever of human forays onto another world, as seen from a birds eye view — or in this case, a satellite's eye view. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter dipped to a lower altitude, just 21 kilometers (13 miles) over the lunar surface.
"We like to look at the Apollo landing site images because it's fun," said LRO principal investigator Mark Robinson at a media briefing today. "But LROC (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera) is looking at the whole Moon, and we have now taken 1,500 of these very high resolution images from all around the Moon which will help scientists and engineers to plan where we want to go in the future."
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Read the rest of NASA Releases Closer Looks at Apollo Landing Sites from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (732 words)
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Post tags: Apollo landing sites, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Missions, Moon
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